Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime

by John Heilemann, Mark Halperin

Overview

In 2008, America was mesmerized by one of the most remarkable presidential campaigns in the nation’s history. But despite wall—to—wall media coverage, the real story behind the headlines has never been told. How did Barack Obama, with relatively little experience, beat the odds to become the nation’s first African—American president? How did her tumultuous relationship with her husband affect Hillary Clinton’s supposedly unstoppable bid? Why did John McCain make the novice governor of Alaska his running mate? And was Sarah Palin merely painfully out of her depth, or troubled in more serious ways?

In Game Change, leading political reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin lay bare the secret history of the 2008 campaign. Based on hundreds of interviews, Game Change is the occasionally shocking, often hilarious, and truly definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.

John Heilemann is the national political correspondent for New York magazine. An award—winning journalist and author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era, he is a former staff writer for The New Yorker, Wired, and The Economist. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Mark Halperin is editor—at—large and senior political analyst for TIME magazine. He is the author of The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President and the coauthor of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008. He spent a decade as the political director for ABC News, and has covered six presidential elections. He lives in Manhattan.

“An amazing piece of work ... It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read.” — Clive Crook, The Financial Times

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061733642
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/26/2010
Pages:	480
Product dimensions:	8.30(w) x 11.28(h) x 1.16(d)

About the Author

John Heilemann, national political correspondent and columnist for New York, is an award-winning journalist and the author of Pride Before the Fall: The Trials of Bill Gates and the End of the Microsoft Era.

Mark Halperin is editor-at-large and senior political analyst for Time. He is also senior political analyst for MSNBC, the author of The Undecided Voter’s Guide to the Next President, and the co-author of The Way to Win: Taking the White House in 2008.

Table of Contents

Authors' Note ix

Prologue 1

Part I

1 Her Time 19

2 The Alternative 36

3 The Ground Beneath Her Feet 63

4 Getting to Yes 88

5 The Inevitables 124

6 Barack in a Box 167

7 "They Looooove Me!" 199

8 The Turning Point 235

9 The Fun Part 258

10 Two for the Price of One 285

11 Fear and Loathing in the Lizard's Thicket 309

12 Pulling Away and Falling Apart 347

13 Obama Agonistes 374

14 The Bitter End Game 402

Part II

15 The Maverick and His Meltdown 433

16 Running Unopposed 460

17 Slipping Nooses, Slaying Demons 490

Part III

18 Paris and Berlin 517

19 The Mile-High Club 537

20 Sarahcuda 565

21 September Surprise 605

22 Seconds in Command 634

23 The Finish Line 671

Epilogue: Together at Last 689

What People are Saying About This

Kurt Andersen

“Riveting, definitive. . . . A great campaign book. . . . Halperin and Heilemann got insiders to cough up astonishing artifacts, including emails and recordings. . . . Game Change is really interesting, and puts you deep in the middle of it.”

Stephen Colbert

“I can’t put down this book!”

Michiko Kakutani

“A fascinating account. . . . Heilemann and Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations. . . . Game Change leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.”

Tina Brown

“A smoking new book. . . . The real revelation in Game Change: Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics.”

Tim Rutten

“Compulsively readable. Once begun, you can’t put it down. . . . Deeply and knowledgeably reported and presented with all the cool sophistication one would expect from two accomplished political reporters.”

Joe Scarborough

“The best presidential political book since What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer and Teddy White’s books. These are the types of books that got me into politics.”

Don Imus

“You’ve got to read Game Change. . . . I read each and every word. . . . Game Change is a great book.”

Tina Jordan

“Riveting. . . . Its pages brim with scandalous tidbits. . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the cutthroat backroom hows and whys of a presidential campaign. . . . And it doesn’t hurt that Game Change reads more bodice-ripper than Beltway.”

Hendrik Hertzberg

“The authors of Game Change succeed in creating a plausible account of the emotional tumult of the 2008 campaign as it might have been—perhaps even was—experienced by the candidates, their spouses, and their staffs.”

Clive Crook

“An amazing piece of work. . . . One of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22. . . . An absolutely gripping read . . . they can write.”

Editorial Reviews

…a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations and allegations…Though this book focuses on personal matters, not policy concerns, and though some of what will be its most talked about passages fall into the realm of gossip and reflect the views of chatty and, in some cases, bitter, regretful or spin-conscious aides, the volume does leave the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.
—The New York Times

Michiko Kakutani

Heilemann, a columnist for New York magazine, and Halperin, the senior political analyst for Time, have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign, longer on vignettes and backstage gossip than on analysis. But if their racy account provides little context for Obama's rise, it vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused his opponents to self-destruct. The narrative also reinforces the familiar argument that a presidential campaign provides one important test of a candidate's ability to govern.
—The New York Times Book Review

Jacob Heilbrunn

…[Heilemann and Halperin] not only tell the story of the 2008 campaign in an engaging and readable way, they come up with some real reporting. Much of that reporting, it must be said, is of the gossipy sort, such as Harry Reid's by-now famous comment about black speech. Still, although I had some sense of the dimensions of the Palin disaster before reading this book, the authors' account of how she failed to prepare for her debate with Joe Biden is chilling…I doubt that any other book about the 2008 election will top this one in narrative drive.
—The Washington Post

Alan Wolfe

“Everybody talked. Anybody that tells you they didn’t is lying to you.” - A former top Clinton aide, to Politico’s Ben Smith
“Riveting, definitive. . . . A great campaign book. . . . Halperin and Heilemann got insiders to cough up astonishing artifacts, including emails and recordings. . . . Game Change is really interesting, and puts you deep in the middle of it.” - Kurt Andersen, Very Short List
“Heilemann and Halperin have conducted hundreds of interviews to provide the inside story of the 2008 campaign. . . . It vividly shows how character flaws large and small caused Obama’s opponents to self-destruct.” - Jacob Heilbrunn, The New York Times Book Review
“A fascinating account. . . . Heilemann and Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations. . . . The authors mix savvy political analysis in these pages with detailed reconstructions of scenes and conversations. . . . Game Change leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.” - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“A fascinating account. . . . Heilemann and Halperin serve up a spicy smorgasbord of observations, revelations, and allegations. . . . Game Change leaves the reader with a vivid, visceral sense of the campaign and a keen understanding of the paradoxes and contingencies of history.” - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“I can’t put down this book!” - Stephen Colbert
“A thoroughly researched, well-paced and occasionally very amusing read. . . . The result is something that conveys the feel, or perhaps more accurately the smell, of one of recent history’s most thrilling elections, and it does so better than any of the other books already on the market.” - The Economist
“The authors of Game Change succeed in creating a plausible account of the emotional tumult of the 2008 campaign as it might have been—perhaps even was—experienced by the candidates, their spouses, and their staffs.” - Hendrik Hertzberg, The New Yorker
“An amazing piece of work. . . . It’s one of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22. . . . It is an absolutely gripping read, because on top of everything else, they can write.” - Clive Crook, The Financial Times
“An amazing piece of work. . . . One of the best books on politics of any kind I’ve read. For entertainment value, I put it up there with Catch 22. . . . An absolutely gripping read . . . they can write.” - Clive Crook, The Financial Times
“Riveting. . . . Its pages brim with scandalous tidbits. . . . This is a must-read for anyone interested in the cutthroat backroom hows and whys of a presidential campaign. . . . And it doesn’t hurt that Game Change reads more bodice-ripper than Beltway.” - Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
“A smoking new book. . . . The real revelation in Game Change: Campaigns turn our politicians into lunatics.” - Tina Brown, The Daily Beast
“Compulsively readable. Once begun, you can’t put it down. . . . Deeply and knowledgeably reported and presented with all the cool sophistication one would expect from two accomplished political reporters.” - Tim Rutten, The Los Angeles Times
“The hottest book in the country.” - The Associated Press
“The best presidential political book since What it Takes by Richard Ben Cramer and Teddy White’s books. These are the types of books that got me into politics.” - Joe Scarborough
“An explosive new book. . . . An absolute page turner.” - Soledad O’Brien on Larry King Live
“You’ve got to read Game Change. . . . I read each and every word. . . . Game Change is a great book.” - Don Imus

From the Publisher